Storing digital data in a minimum space is frequently desired. There are many methods of compressing data to minimize the memory required for storing the data. One technique termed "Huffman compression" replaces bytes in the data text with bits. In Huffman compression, the unique code of bits used for a byte is based on the frequency of that particular byte in relation to other bytes in the text. When the compressed text is accessed, it is decoded by a logic tree technique of sequentially stepping through the individual bits to locate the byte represented by the bit code. Compressing and decompressing files using the Huffman technique is well known. Huffman, David A., "A Method for the Construction of Minimum-Redundancy Codes," Proceedings of the I.R.E., September 1952. A second current method of compressing text is the replacing of runs of characters with a run flag, a character, and a run count.
Current digital data compressing techniques, including Huffman compression and others, provide a first level compression of the full-format text. Unfortunately, text compressed using Huffman and other compression techniques may still be prohibitively large for some applications. Further, present techniques for decompressing the compressed text are too slow to be used in some environments. For example, a user or program may require immediate access to a readable form of the text file and not be able to wait while decompression and assembly into a readable form occur. In such environments, computer memory and disk storage are sacrificed for speed in accessing full-format text rather than compressing the text.